


Rusted From The Rain

by phylavell



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, High Chaos (Dishonored), M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phylavell/pseuds/phylavell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Outsider decides to have some fun and de-ages both Corvo and Daud while leaving them in their current state of affairs. It'll be interesting, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rusted From The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> First jab at this fandom. No beta and I only re-read this a couple times. So please let me know if anything is off. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. <3

He lets out a loud sigh when he opens his eyes to the Void. Sleep hadn’t come easy the past few weeks and he resented the thought of the Outsider having any influence on the sleep he did get. He takes two steps before the god appears before him, arms crossed, with an amused expression on his face.

“I trust you’re content with the consequences of your actions?” he asks. 

Corvo frowns deeply and crosses his arms as well. He knows better than to try and outwit the Outsider. The god in question tilts his head, in amusement? Confusion? Corvo couldn’t be sure.

“There are far greater consequences than what you’ve seen around you. Tides change at the will of the moon and while you may take your moment of peace with a heavy heart, you can never know that you’re drowning until it is actually happening. Enjoy your peace, my dear Corvo, for when the tides change, will you be ready?”

Corvo feels his body tense as the Outsider disappears and his vision blurs. His head begins to ache and his hands reach up to rub his eyes.

 

The roof above him comes into focus and his head feels clouded. The moonlight coming in through the window shines a room that he doesn’t recognize. A chill of panic runs up his spine as he immediately gets up from the bed he lies in. He would remember having moved. Something was off.

He looks down at himself and at his surroundings. He frowns at the large coat hanging from a rack. It would have to do. He slips it on, grateful that the material was lighter than it looked. He makes his way to the outer hall, prying the door of the bedroom as quietly as he can. His footsteps are as light as he can make them and he almost makes it to the single open window across it when he hears a voice.

“Corvo?” that’s his name, yes.

He turns around and a little girl stares back up at him. Her eyes are sleepy and she’s holding a blanket.

“What are you doing?” she continues speaking. 

He panics and is out the window before she can say another word. He finds his way down through the ledges and broken bits of what he now realizes is Dunwall Tower. As his feet touch the ground he wonders how he’d ended up there. He racks his mind for his whereabouts before waking up in the tower, but he comes up blank every time. He looks around at Dunwall and it’s nothing like he remembers it. He leans back against the wall, the coldness of the night seeping through his coat as he sticks his hands in the coat’s pocket. He fishes out a few things.

First, a set of gloves that he gratefully begins to slip on until he jumps back at the sight of the mark on his hand. It was unmistakable- it was the mark of the Outsider. His eyes widen as he traces a finger over the mark. Corvo wasn’t extremely attentive to the scriptures of the Abbey, but he’d never actively sought out the Outsider. It had to be the real thing. He slips the gloves on without a second thought. He makes his way throughout the city and quickly comes upon the Wrenhaven’s shore. 

He doesn’t look through the coat’s pockets again until he’s found a small boat that can get him across the river. The mask comes next. He tucks a lock of hair behind his ear as he looks down at it curiously. His fingers trace the eyes for a moment before he slips it on. He figures out how to focus his vision before rowing himself across the river. He arrives at the other side of the shore and pauses to fish out the final object in his pockets. The heart nearly falls out of his hands as he pulls it out. He lets out a horrified gasp when it speaks.

“So young…I remember when you were like this,” it whispers. He doesn’t know what to say. He carefully picks it up and it speaks to him again.

“You know nothing if the horrors brought and the horrors you will bring.”

It beats in his hands, gently. It scares him more than he will ever admit. He slips it back into his pocket, sure he won’t be pulling it back any time soon. The moon above him shines down, illuminating the city enough for him to eventually find himself upon the roof of a building in the financial district- or at least what was left of it.

He sits cross-legged, mask still on, at the top of a building while he looks up at the moon. The silence of the city falls around him in a comforting way. He doesn’t know what’s happened to the city or why. His place in it all is also fairly unknown to him. The little girl in Dunwall tower knew who he was, and- if his memory served him right- she looked like… the emperor’s daughter? He shakes his head at the thought. He knew she had to be much older than that.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out what the mark of the Outsider grants. A rumbling is heard from beneath him and as soon as he hears the clashing of blades he’s on his feet. He transverses from one place to another, realizing it only when he appears in front of a group of oddly dressed people. They also wear masks over their faces. 

As they reach for him, their motions blur, slowing somehow, and Corvo takes a few steps to the right, observing the one closest to him before they return to normal speed. They all turn to face him in an instant. One approaches him, specifically.

“Lord Protector!”

Who? Corvo takes a step back and another approaches him.

“Never thought I’d be happy to see you around,” another says through their mask. Corvo doesn’t respond. 

“You should get in there,” a third says from the group. They gesture down a hallway, “we don’t know what happened to him. One second he’s brooding and telling us not to disturb him because he’s going to sleep, and the next he’s running out of there, looking nearly 20 years younger and absolutely panicked.”

“He attacked us,” the first says.

Corvo doesn’t understand. Did he know these people?

“Thomas is holding him off from the rest of us, but we don’t know how long he can last,” the third crosses their arms, “I doubted the old man, but after seeing how vicious he used to be, I don’t blame Daud for wanting the killing to stop.”

Now, there was something Corvo finally recognized. He’d heard countless stories about Daud, the infamous assassin from Serkonos. Corvo gives the group a slight nod before turning down to the hallway. Apparently, he knew the group, and possibly the assassin. 

A slight burst of adrenaline has him transversing from one end of the hallway to the other side of two glass doors. Inside, he watches another person dressed like the group, presumably Thomas, clash with who Corvo assumes is Daud. He dresses in dark red, a contrast to the blues and greys of the group. Their blades clink and Corvo opens the door. The two notice his entrance.

“Corvo!” Thomas yells as he transverses away from the fight. 

Through the mask Corvo can see Daud give him a once over. His eyes dart to the sides and back at Corvo, as if assessing the situation. Corvo draws his own blade and takes a step back as Thomas transverses beside him.

“And who are you?” Daud asks, his blade still at the ready.

Corvo looks at Thomas. The mask he wears over his face tells Corvo nothing. Still holding his own blade out, Corvo reaches up and pulls the hood of the coat down. With the same hand he removes the mask.

“Corvo,” he finally says as he looks down at his mask.

“Okay- Corvo. Why are you here?” 

Corvo looks up to meet the assassin’s eyes again. He doubts that Daud has taken his cautious eyes off of him.

“I…” Corvo looks at Thomas again, “don’t know.”

Thomas takes the opportunity to transverse away from the room. Corvo looks at the blank space for a moment before turning back to Daud’s now curious expression.

“Did someone send you?” the assassin asks.

“No,” Corvo looks around the office they stand in, “I don’t…know what’s happening.”

“Those boys and girls in masks. You know them?” 

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?” Daud crosses his arms impatiently.

Corvo frowns and pockets his mask, “I woke up in a tower, in a city that doesn’t look like Dunwall but is- surrounded by people I don’t know.”

Daud’s eyes widen in surprise for a second before he takes a step forward, “Hm,” he pauses for a moment, “that’s a coincidence.”

Corvo watches Daud finally look around and his own eyes dart to the assassin’s hands, specifically to the one that despite the glove, bears the mark of the Outsider. It glows through the material as Daud moves forward past Corvo. He looks out the glass doors before turning back towards the desk behind him.

“The Outsider,” Corvo says firmly.

Daud looks up from the book he’s looking through and gives Corvo a suspicious look. 

Corvo sheathes his blade and removes the glove from his own marked hand. He watches Daud’s eyes go from Corvo’s hand to his own.

“You think this was his doing?” 

Corvo shrugs and moves towards the open window in the office. He didn’t know what was going on and the adrenaline from a possible confrontation with the assassin had worn off. The headache was beginning to return and he wants to be back on the roof. Daud lets him go without another word.

It doesn’t take him long to re-scale the building. He sits near the centre with his knees pressed up against his chest. A blank feeling comes over him and he worries. He knows where he should be and he’s just not there. The Dunwall around him isn’t the city he knew. What had happened? Had he been sent to somewhere else via the Void? Was this the Outsider’s doing?

He notices the assassin transverse beside him but doesn’t say anything.

“The documents in that office,” Daud begins as he sits next to Corvo, “they’re mine. It’s my writing, my words.”

The side of Corvo’s thigh begins stinging as the heart somehow begins pressing into his skin. He hisses as he fishes it out of his pocket, immediately regretting doing so at the sound of Daud’s gasp.

“ _What is that_?!” the assassin shifts away.

“Both of you… know not what you’ve done,” the heart whispers.

“Did it just speak?” Daud looks at Corvo before looking back down at the heart.

“Why?” Corvo ignores the question and he pokes at the heart, trying to get it to say something else. It doesn’t respond and he tries holding it up.

“A city lost, broken, holding onto last shreds of life,” it whispers.

“Why is it like this?”

Corvo moves the heart again. He stops, holding it out in front of the assassin as it whispers again.

“He knows only the blood spilled by contracts and vendettas, not of the royal blood that will stain his hands.”

“Royal blood?” Daud crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows in surprise, “the heart knows the future?”

Corvo moves again and the heart responds.

“It is not the future, it is the present, it is you who are from a distant past.”

“Me?” the assassin asks, his arms uncrossing.

“No,” the heart whispers.

“Me?” Corvo tries.

“No,” the heart repeats.

“Us?” the two speak simultaneously. 

“The city you knew is dying, on its last breath. You cannot change what you’ve done.”

Corvo tries the heart again and no matter where he positions it, it doesn’t speak again. Daud watches him mess with the heart before Corvo tucks it away again.

“So what do we do?” the assassin asks.

“I don’t know,” Corvo frowns. He doesn’t seem to have an answer for anything. It's beginning to bother him.

“I can’t go back down there,” Daud brings his knees up and hugs them to his chest, looking oddly vulnerable. Corvo watches him for a moment before moving in closer to the assassin.

Daud immediately goes on the defensive, quickly reacting in a retreating gesture. Corvo looks up at him with big eyes illuminated by the moonlight. He’s not scared, but he’s lost. He knows that Daud feels it too, despite the rough exterior.

He knows it because the assassin relents. Corvo leans his head on Daud’s shoulder and Daud sighs loudly.

“We can’t stay up here. We have to figure something out,” Daud says.

“Yes,” Corvo replies softly. He’d been asleep when he’d been brought to what the heart says is a future version of Dunwall. Now that he and Daud had more or less figured out what was happening, the initial shock and panic had begun to fade. His eyes were feeling heavier and heavier as the time passed.

“I could get the- the whalers, I think they’re called. We could figure this out. The Outsider must have answers, right?”

“Right,” the assassin’s words are surprisingly comforting. The Outsider, of course. He’d have answers. Corvo looks down at the hand that bares the mark, remembering that Daud has a matching one, “Do you think we knew each other?”

Daud almost laughs, “probably not. You say you woke up in the tower? You must be the royalty.”

Corvo frowns. He catches on to what the assassin’s train of thought was, “I doubt I’m the royal blood on your hands. I’m alive aren’t I?”

“True,” Daud nods and looks down at Corvo. Dark hair has fallen onto his face over his shut eyes, a worried expression still on his face. Daud stretches his legs out and uses a free arm to wrap around Corvo’s thin frame. The assassin’s body tenses as he feels Corvo lean into the embrace.

“We’ll figure it out,” Corvo repeats softly.


End file.
